Denise A. Davis
Program Officer
Denise A. Davis, Dr.P.H, joined the Foundation in August 2005, as a program officer in the health care group working with the Disparities and Nursing Teams.
Before joining RWJF, Davis was a policy analyst at the Center for State Health Policy where she managed projects focused on such issues as access to care of vulnerable populations, racial and ethnic health care disparities, health care performance measurement, and quality of care. Prior to joining the Center, Davis worked as a research associate with the Carolina Institute for Public Health where she conducted health needs assessments among rural population groups, participated in program evaluations, and directed activities associated with numerous state contracts. As a program associate for the Center for Community-Based Public Health, she worked on the re-tooling of the CDC’s Evaluation Framework for use by community-based organizations, specifically grantees of the CDC R.E.A.C.H. initiative.
Davis is a former deputy director of the Information Access Program (a W.K. Kellogg Foundation-funded initiative) and also served as deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Information for State Health Policy Program. She also has extensive managerial experience in health care planning, policy and administration. Her research interests include state and local health care policy, community-based approaches for improvement of health delivery systems and outcomes for underserved populations, racial and ethnic disparities in vulnerable groups, and the impact of the health care safety net on the uninsured.
Davis is a member of the American Public Health Association and has sat on several federal and state work groups both in New Jersey and North Carolina.
Davis earned a Dr. P.H. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in health policy and administration, an M.P.A. in public policy and administration with a concentration in health from New York University, and a B.A. from Ithaca College in allied health.